Fanboys Anonymous

Now that we know several of the cast members of the upcoming Star Wars film, the next piece of the puzzle had to be either the title or the names of the characters that those actors would portray. For people like myself who are waiting on some kind of confirmation that Domhnall Gleeson is Ben Skywalker, we'll have to wait a little bit longer.

However, there may be some news about the former of those two mysteries. Ain't It Cool News is reporting that the working title for Episode 7 is THE ANCIENT FEAR and that it is referring to Max Von Sydow's character, who is a villain "who makes Pazuzu look like a pussy."

There are several things of interest about this news, if it indeed turns out to be true.

First, it would confirm what pretty much everyone speculated about from the beginning—that Max Von Sydow is playing an important villain. Just looking at the guy would make that obvious, but then again, you can never be sure about these things.

Second, it would follow in the footsteps of the regular formatting for titles in the franchise. The third film's titles have reflected each other, with Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi. The second films refer to an action of war from a faction. What does the empire do? They strike back. Who attacks? The clones do. The first film has a recognizable pattern as well, with three words that speak of a particular person. A New Hope and The Phantom Menace and The Ancient Fear of Max Von Sydow. Makes sense, right?

That being said, I hope this is not the title and we get something else. I don't like the idea that Max Von Sydow is a villain who has existed beforehand, as that kind of undercuts the importance of Darth Sidious being the end-all-be-all of evil. Then again, maybe he's not supposed to be. I'm open to being convinced otherwise. On top of this, I feel like the title is too bland. It reminds me of the laundry list of title suggestions that I've been reading for years from fans that are really weak. There may be better ones out there, but I've been throwing a particular name out for a while that I like: "A Rising Force." To me, The Ancient Fear plays itself to the common folk too much and dumbs itself down just to make it easier for people to know what's going on.

But hey, at least it's no "Divisions of the Quagmire"...